Three years ago, Zhu Qinghao met Chen Jianjin for the first time.
He was on the school rooftop, his school uniform hung crumpled on his body, an unlit cigarette held between his fingertips, his eyes as empty as a pool of stagnant water. Everyone said he was a piece of shit - his father was an alcoholic, his mother ran away, he was at the bottom of his grades, and fights were commonplace. Even he himself admitted with a smile: "I am not worthy of anyone getting close to me."
But Zhu Qing really doesn't believe it.
On the first day she transferred to another school, she sat next to him. She handed him a candy, but he threw it away; she copied notes for him, but he tore them up; she blocked a punch for him, but he just looked at the bleeding corner of her mouth coldly and said, "Are you sick?"
I wish you well. You are indeed ill. She stubbornly believed that the boy who protected the stray cat in his arms on a rainy day should not die in the dark.
She spent three years lighting up his world bit by bit - accompanying him to prepare for exams, accompanying him to step out of the shadows, and accompanying him to grow from a boy to a laughing and playful adult. When he finally turned around one evening, looked at her with red eyes and said, "Hello, I seem to be able to live again," she knew that all the persistence was worth it.
The road afterwards was not smooth, but the two held hands and walked step by step to the brightest place.
Many years later, Chen Jianjin stood on the rooftop where they first met, holding a sunflower in his arms, and said to her beside him:
"Hello sir, thank you for not giving up on me."
She smiled and said, "I never gave up on you."
